


something tragic, something so magic

by secretlyhuman



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Asexual Character, F/F, F/M, Journalism, More tags to be added, Mystery, Slow Burn, ace jughead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 09:59:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17465363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretlyhuman/pseuds/secretlyhuman
Summary: Betty looked away from the barista and back to the empty page on her laptop. She was meant to be writing an essay about something but instead she was still staring at the dark haired girl who’d made her coffee. Her name tag said Veronica and Betty thought she might be a friend of Jughead’s.Veronica was a little shorter than she was and her hair was loose around her shoulders. A thin line of pearls circled her throat and her skin was porcelain pale. Her mouth was painted the colour of blackberry juice, so dark it was almost black. She looked like the heroine of the action novels Betty liked to read.





	something tragic, something so magic

**Author's Note:**

> Title is vaguely lifted from from Eden because I forgot how much I hated naming things. This is the first chapter of a thing that I wrote some time ago and I’m hoping posting it forces me to finish it, or at least start posting other shit again. This is all outlined I just need to write the damn thing. 
> 
> Tysm for reading x

There was a bruise on her knuckles. It was light enough that she’d almost missed it, light enough to almost just be the blush of her skin. But the more she looked at it it was definitely a bruise.

Betty looked away from the barista and back to the empty page on her laptop. She was meant to be writing an essay about something but instead she was still staring at the dark haired girl who’d made her coffee. Her name tag said Veronica and Betty thought she might be a friend of Jughead’s.

She’d been sitting in the coffee shop long enough that her tea was cold but her screen was still empty, no closer to finishing the essay that was due alarmingly soon. The dark haired girl had captured her attention as soon as she’d reached the counter and soon she was caught up in the mystery of her bruised knuckles.

Veronica was a little shorter than she was and her hair was loose around her shoulders. A thin line of pearls circled her throat and her skin was porcelain pale. Her mouth was painted the colour of blackberry juice, so dark it was almost black. She looked like the heroine of the action novels Betty liked to read.

She checked her phone and realised Jughead would be arriving soon so she packed up her beat up laptop and pulled out an equally beat up black notebook. She was meant to be interviewing him about the gang he’d joined in high school. It was far enough behind him that he could talk about it without tears in his eyes and he’d said he wanted to talk to her about it. That maybe she could change something about the shitty town they'd grown up in if only she put the right words out not the world.

It still amazed her they'd been so close their whole lives but hadn’t met until they’d both moved to New York. They’d sat next to each other in their very first English class on their first day of freshman year and they’d been inseparable ever since. Of course she’d heard about him while still on the Northside. The serpent prince, the Jones boy, next in line to the Southside.

Nothing could have quite prepared her for the real Jughead Jones.

She looked at him as he walked to the counter and started to order their drinks. He definitely hadn’t been what she’d expected. He was slim, all angles and sharp planes. Not obviously muscled or even particularly strong looking. She hadn’t seen how he could have gained such a reputation until she stayed at his house one night. He’d woken up screaming and told her about the how he found the sugar man. A villain who’d haunted their town since far before they'd even been born. After that she saw him a little more as the serpent he had once been.

At that moment though he was leant on the countertop laughing with the dark haired girl. She had her hands crossed over on the counter hiding the bruises from Jughead and Betty wondered not for the first time what the story behind them was.

The moment was shattered as Jughead was handed their drinks and made his way over to the table. He sat down and if he was nervous about their interview it didn’t show.

“Who’s she?” Betty tried to keep her tone even, not exposing how interested she really was in the strange girl.

“Why, you jealous Cooper?”

“In your dreams, Jones, answer the question.” They grinned at each other.

“”I was the serpent prince.” The smile fell from his face as quickly as it’s had formed. “She was our fallen princess.”

…

It turned out the girls name was Veronica Lodge, daughter of the infamous Hiram Lodge. A man who was so sinister even the serpents didn’t want him. Much to her father's displeasure she’d joined the serpent's the minute she could, stepping into the role her father had held with the grace you’d expect of an ex-socialite.

She hadn’t joined the right way, Jughead said. Women joined through the dance, a shitty thing but just the way it was. But Veronica refused, walked up to the snake tank and grabbed the knife before anyone had the chance to stop her. She even passed the Gauntlet, the only woman to have done so.

(At this point Jughead had paused to explain what the Gauntlet had entailed in vivid detail as Betty winced.)

She soon rose through the ranks, the princess to Jughead’s prince. They were the children of the leaders and when F.P had gone to jail they’d worked to keep the serpents together. Apparently her and Jughead hadn’t seen eye to eye. Everything Veronica knew had been learnt from her father and that wasn’t what Jughead had wanted for them all.

She’d been kicked out of the serpents in her senior year. Finally crossed a line, he wouldn’t explain to Betty what line but she could tell it was something bad. Something unforgivable. Yet at some point she stopped spiralling and called Jughead. He’d helped her get to New York and they were friends once more.

Jughead had told her that he could try and get her an interview for the article Betty was writing and she hoped he could. She was already kind of excited to meet the fallen princess. In the interest of journalism of course, nothing else.

…

After they'd finished the interview they went back to Jughead’s. They held hands as the took the subway and Betty wondered if this was her life. Failed assignments and too sweet coffee with Jughead by her side, it could be worse but it could be better. She tried to see as the drunk freshman saw him. It wasn’t that she didn’t find him attractive but it was like something was missing.

There was a new canvas in his apartment when they got there. It was about her height and painted in a delicate rose pink with pictures Jughead had taken of different flowers laid out around it.

“What are you painting, Juggie?” She loved watching him paint, secretly hoping the question would lead to him bringing out his acrylics.

“I was hoping you.” A blush sprung up on her face and she felt a matching one on hers. A painting felt like a commitment which over the past year was something they had both avoided. They were willing to fall into each other while drunk or bored, but a little part of her was terrified a painting meant something more. Something solid.

“Just think about it Cooper.” She nodded and hid her pink cheeks in a cupboard looking for the mugs she needed to make coffee.

That night ended the way many before, with Betty in Jughead’s bed. No clothes and teeth on skin and the feeling something was missing from it all. She knew Jughead was ace, but liked the actual act of sex and she thought maybe that was it. What was lacking was attraction, a real connection, the solid thing she was avoiding.

She left before Jughead woke up, slipping into the clean underwear she’d started keeping at his place, finding one of his smaller t-shirts and then pulling her jeans back on. She had to get to class early so she could finish the stupid essay she hadn’t written yesterday.

The empty feeling that she’d found yesterday stuck with her, but she just dug her nails into her palms and relished at the sting. She thought about the fallen princess and how Jughead had grimaced while telling her story. Something about Veronica Lodge had her excited in a way she didn’t feel very often. It brought her back to the first time she’d met Jughead or her first kiss with Archie, something new and exciting. She wasn’t sure what it meant but she knew she had to chase it.

Anything was better than the emptiness.

…

Her days passed in a blur, classes blending one into the next and Betty tried to claw away from the numbness she had sunk into. The crescent scars on her palms had been replaced with tiny cuts She still hadn’t even written the essay.

Instead she wrote and rewrote the story of the Serpent Prince, the boy who had grown up twenty minutes from her childhood home despite living a completely different life. Something about the story didn’t feel right. (Nothing felt right, the story was just part of that.)

It was on the third night of staring at the blank space where the opening sentence should have been that she got Jughead’s text.

**Veronicas says she’s chill to be interviewed.**   
**Come over later i miss you ;)**

She ignored his second message and the rush of excitement to ask when Veronica was free to talk. She almost felt bad about letting Jughead do this for her but he was willing to. When the interview was organised and Veronica’s number was stored in her phone she powered down her laptop and undid her ponytail. This could be just what the story needed. 


End file.
